Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/464

406 and in selling fruit and flowers; all the betel and areca, called here siri and pinang, of which an immense quantity is chewed by Portuguese, Chinese, Slams, slaves, and freemen, is grown by them. The lime that they use here is, however, slaked, by which means their teeth are not eaten up in the same manner as those of the people of Savu who use it unslaked. They mix it also with a substance called gambir, which is brought from the continent of India, and the better sort of women use with their chew many sorts of perfumes, as cardamoms, etc., to give the breath an agreeable smell. Many also get a livelihood by fishing and carrying goods upon the water, etc. Some, however, there are who are very rich and live splendidly in their own way, which consists almost entirely in possessing a number of slaves.

In the article of food no people can be more abstemious than they are. Boiled rice is of rich, as well as of poor, the principal part of their subsistence: this with a small proportion of fish, buffalo or fowl, and sometimes dried fish and dry shrimps, brought here from China, is their chief food. Everything, however, must be highly seasoned with cayenne pepper. They have also many pastry dishes made of rice flour and other things I am totally ignorant of, which are very pleasant: fruit also they eat much of, especially plantains.

Their feasts are plentiful, and in their way magnificent, though they consist more of show than meat: artificial flowers, etc., are in profusion, and meat plentiful, though there is no great variety of dishes. Their religion of Mahometanism denies them the use of strong liquors: nor do I believe that they trespass much in that way, having always tobacco, betel, and opium wherewith to intoxicate themselves. Their weddings are carried on with vast form and show: the families concerned borrowing as many gold and silver ornaments as possible to adorn the bride and bridegroom, so that their dresses are always costly. The feasts and ceremonies relating to them last in rich men's families a fortnight or more; during all which time the man, though married on the first day, is by the women kept from his wife.